Agricultural balers have been used to consolidate and package crop material so as to facilitate the storage and handling of the crop material for later use. Usually, a mower-conditioner cuts and conditions the crop material for windrow drying in the sun. When the cut crop material is properly dried, a baler, for example a round baler, is pulled by a tractor to travel along the windrows and pick up the crop material to form a round bale inside the baling chamber of the baler.
When the bale size reaches a particular size, the driver manually stops the tractor and initiates bale wrapping to wrap the finished bale with netting, wrapping, or twine. This typically requires the operator to press the clutch, put the tractor in neutral and hold down the brake. After the bale is wrapped, the bale is ejected from the back of the baler to the ground manually by the operator by typically pulling a hydraulic lever.
The operator manually restarts the tractor by disengaging the brake and clutch to drive the tractor to pick up crop material for the baling process to begin again. This bale forming and wrapping is repeated with the operator being tasked to manually conduct tractor stopping operation before initiating bale wrapping and bale ejection. The operator then manually restarts the tractor following bale wrapping and ejection. This is repetitive and time consuming.
What is needed is an automated tractor stop integrated with bale wrapping functionality that incorporates operator notification and interaction during the tractor stop process.